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Show • 102 NATIONAL WAGON ROAD GUIDE. brated Soda and Beer Springs. One of these, a short distance from the road to the south, is one of t~ most remarkable objects, on account of its properties, to be found upon the whole route. It is a large soda spring, several feet in dian1eter, cool, clear, and deep, and its waters-which are drunk in great quantities by the emigrants- arc possessed of a singularly agreeable sub-acid flavor. From the great number of bubbles that are constantly rising to the surface, the waters appear to be in a state of actual effervescence. There is usually a small 'village of the Shoshonee or Snake Indians here, a blacksmith's 'shop and something of a trading post. A short distance further on is the Steamboat Spring, to the left of the road ; this derives its name from the gurgling noise and agitation at some seasons of the year, its heat, and the steam or vapor it emits in cold weather. BEAR RIVER SPRING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Take on water here, for you now leave Bear River for the last time, and there is no more. water for seventeen · miles, and perhaps twenty, depending on the season. JUNQTION OF CALIFORNIA AND FORT HALL ROADS . • • • • • • • • • . . • • • • • • • • • • • • • . . • • . • • • • • • • . • . • 4 Take the left for California, the right for Oregon. You are now entering upon an apparently beautiful plain, but you will find but very little good grass, and in many places only a barren rock, broken and cracked into innumerable fissures, frotn one to five feet in width run-ning in all directions, and extending downward t'o an unknovvn depth. Off to your left, in the midst of the plai~, two miles from the road, is a perfectly conical hill, and 1s worthy a visit, being really the crater of an extinct volcano. · ' . NATIONAL WAGON ROAD GUIDE. 103 OLD VOLCANIC CRATER. This crater rises above the level of the plain one hnn· dred and fifty-five feet, is totally barren, and consists of a coarse, porous, brown lava, or scoria, that while in a melted state ran over and down its sides, lapping and overlapping in successive layers as it cooled, and that in cooling cracked into masses of all shapes and sizes. You can descend into the bowl or crater to its present bottom from the east side only, it being too steep and rugged elsewhere. The edge of the crater is almost perfectly circular, and barely wide enough to enable a person to walk safely upon it, and nearly of the same level all round, except a small portion of the east side, where you enter the crater; and if only to gratify your curiosity, and to be A.ble to say that you have been down into such a crater, go and do it. From the junction last named you cross the plain upon Hudspeth's cut-off, ascend an easy mountain, where the road may seem to fork; keep to your left ; you may find some ·w~ter in MOUNTAIN CREEl{ .......................... · · · · · 13 Very little grass ; go on to CRYSTAL CREEK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... ; · · · · · 4 Good camping; soon rise a mountain, then deseend a narrow and 'difficult' ravine. |